Comedian Eric Omondi and a group of youths have been arrested for attempting to storm into Parliament. The group, all of whom were topless, were protesting the high cost of living in the country.
The youths, who were demonstrating outside Parliament, demanded an audience with National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula.
Youths protest outside Parliament in Nairobi over the high cost of living.
Photo credit: Collins Omulo | Nation Media Group
The youths attempted to gain entry into Parliament Buildings after the National Assembly Speaker took too long to come out and address them.
The police had to lob teargas canisters to disperse the rowdy youths as they struggled to force their way into Parliament Buildings.
The police engaged the youth in running battles before they were rounded up
Protests outside Parliament paralysed transport on Parliament Road for more than 30 minutes.
Kenyans are grappling with a high cost of living which has continued to worsen with prices of goods and services increasing every day.
In June, Kenya’s inflation hit a 58-month high on soaring prices of food items, breaching the government’s upper limit target for the first time since August 2017.
Inflation — a measure of annual changes in the cost of living — hit 7.9 per cent in June, the highest level in two years, from 7.1 per cent in May, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) reported last Thursday.
The prices of goods and services increased by 7.1 per cent in May last year. The increase known as the inflation rate was the highest since February 2020.
In April 2022, a lot of Kenyans were forced to dig deeper into their pockets to pay for basic commodities, especially foodstuff, according to data from the KNBS.
The KNBS data on the cost of living index — known as the consumer price index (CPI) – showed that a kilogram of edible cooking oil rose by 47 per cent year-on-year, retailing at an average of Sh370.71 in major towns around the country compared to Sh252 in the same month last year.
